Carpe Noctem
by Kokoro-no-Kaji
Summary: Human isn't a species. Being Human is a process, a state of mind, an idea in living motion. It's nothing solid you can point to and say yeah, that's it, that's Human. It's something you have to watch, see it all play out. You have to feel it to understand. (Canon compatible, Being Human UK.)
1. A Curious Case of a Vamp in the Daytime

**Summary: **Annie, George, and Mitchell walk the line between Life and Death, trying desperately to figure out what it means to be Human as they struggle to accept that they no longer are. Over the course of their journey, they discover that Human isn't a species. Being human is a process, a state of mind. it's nothing solid you can point to and say yeah, that's it, that's human. It's something you have to watch, see it all play out. You have to feel it to understand._  
_

**A/N:** This is a largely reactionary fic that follows Canon almost exactly, unless otherwise is directly stated. The story is largely meant simply to take the story as it's presented and look at it from a different angle. This chapter is set immediately after the events of the first episode (Flotsam & Jetsam), and assumes Canon.

**Also: **I'm using Clara as a means of having a constant in Mitchell's field of interaction that can untangle his thoughts a bit. **She is not self-insert.**I was going to make her a straight up reporter but that felt too much like a Moonlight cross over and Beth Turner annoyed me. She had to be a writer though, no one in any other occupation could possibly be as nosy or as able to suspend their disbelief as well as a writer could, nor would the have the extensive understanding of humanity required to trigger some of the conversations Clara and Mitchell have, and she had to be someone Mitchell trusted in a similar manner as, but different circumstances than, Josie, hence the the love interest thing. But that doesn't mean she's an end-game romantic player in this, her involvement isn't additional so much as it is complimentary to the story's actual Canon events, she's practically not event there.

The other reason I'm using Clara as something of a love interest is to explore the idea of Mitchell condoning a S2 GxA thing, because Nina really irked me and my only real tweak of Canon in this story is going to be that fact that George doesn't scratch her (which, granted, changes almost everything, but she'll still be an active force, just not as strong of one).

* * *

**_The Curious Case of the Vamp in the Daytime~_**

Death is something natural, something inevitable, something human.

It's natural and final and so beautifully _mortal_ that the most human thing to do when facing Death is to run away, to cling desperately to Life with the whole of the ferocity that the spirit could dig up out of the Dark. In running away from Death, a person experiences Life in entirely new ways. So little separates Life from Death, and skirting the line can reveal dimensions of reality that can't be comprehended by mere mortals.

But Death doesn't like to be cheated.

At some point in history, Death added a caveat to level the field of those who dipped their toes into the Dark. They were forever tainted, contagious. In order to maintain their immortality, they had to perpetuate their immortality, their curse.

The first vampire, the first werewolf, the first wandering ghost, the first of any sort of unnatural, enduring, eternal creature chose their path. In walking along it, they were bound by nature of their very existence to take others along with them, to drag innocents into the Dark.

Everyone deserves a Death.

Death is like the punchline that makes a joke funny, even when you see it coming. Death makes Life mean something. Without Death, Life is nothing. To live without Death devalues Life, makes taking a life by force mean nothing, accrue no cost, and killing becomes little more than an act that reminds an immortal that they're alive.

Even the innocents who were dragged into their immortality by force feel more at ease around Death than any mortal ever could. Places where the two worlds collided, where Life and Death met face to face on even ground, were the places that immortals found themselves seeking asylum from the rest of the world. Places like churches, graveyards, nursing homes, funeral parlors, and hospitals or anywhere that Life and Death exist in tandem attracted the people who didn't belong firmly on either side of the line.

They found it comforted them to stay within the grey . . .

John Mitchell and his best friend George Sands worked the graveyard shift at the hospital for a few very important reasons. One of the main reasons was their predominantly nocturnal natures, but the very base of the matter was that at two in the morning, aside from the odd emergency, the hospital was a very quiet place to be. Even during the rush of a major happening, the porters were people that moved through the hallways as obtrusively as shadows.

They were ghosts that no one much cared to talk to.

Except for today, apparently.

"What can you tell me about the recent unsolved incidents surrounding this hospital, you know, the disappearance of Lauren Drake, the brutal alley-way murder of Becca Harris, and now the broad-daylight exsanguination of Annabel Cooper?"

Bubbly and tenacious, a young woman with honey-brown hair that looked dull under the hospital lights had been systematically making her way through all of the nurses and porters and even some of the doctors that were working the graveyard shift.

"Not much," Mitchell told her was a shrug. "Just what I already gave to the police. They were all pretty new to the staff."

"I'm not with the police," she explained. It was obvious to him that she wasn't with the police, but Mitchell needed to keep a low profile in regards to that matter. "I know it's not really a pleasant thing to think about, but I'd really appreciate it if you could tell me what you know."

"If you're not with the police, then who are you?" Mitchell asked, his voice curious and without any trace of darker suspicion. "This isn't exactly the sort of thing most people would just want to chat about over a cup of coffee."

The girl peeked up at him, like she was a school-girl that had a secret she wanted to trust him with. To encourage her confidence, Mitchell rested his chin on the hand holding the top of his mop steady and smiled.

"What if I told you I knew Annabel?"

Frowning at the unexpected news, Mitchell hurried to say, "Oh, I'm sorry."

"She was kind of a bitch," the girl said with a shrug. "But I did know her. And I know that before her death, she was involved with some pretty suspicious people, and that she, like the other two victims, had a crush on you."

"You think the different cases are all connected? And that _I_ had something to do with it?" Mitchell asked, some of his concern showing on his face. He was, to his intense guilt and anguish, entirely responsible for the first two incidents. However, he'd only heard about Annabel's death when he'd shown up for his shift as the sun set on the day she'd died.

Honestly, Mitchell's first thought was that it had been Lauren again, but Herrick should have had Lauren under control after the incident with Becca. At the same time, Mitchell could think of nothing that would amuse Herrick more than turning Lauren loose to torment him.

"Oh, I _know_ all the cases are connected. The victims are all new hospital employees, and they were all involved with you," the girl pointed out. "I'm just not sure how they're connected, _exactly_. You could be the killer for all I know. Or you could be the victim of one very dedicated and psychopathic stalker. Or something else entirely."

"I'm not the killer," Mitchell promised, the honesty ringing in his voice.

The girl smiled at him. "You seem like a nice guy, John Mitchell."

"I try to be," Mitchell responded.

"Don't we all . . ." it was said under her breath, but Mitchell heard it all the same. Then, brightening again, the girl asked, "Can I just ask you one thing? Get one real answer from you?"

Mitchell shrugged. "I'll be as helpful as I can."

"Did Annabel ever tell you anything about her Nomer friends?"

"Nomer friends?"

Biting her lip self-consciously, she clarified, "her vampire friends."

"Did you just say . . ." Mitchell's mind was racing. Vampires didn't make friends with humans. That much was non-negotiable. Vampires either killed or Turned humans. Even Mitchell had given up on holding any sort of legitimate relationship with a regular human. He still held out hope to fall in love, but he'd never tell a woman that he was a vampire before he was sure that she wouldn't go blabbing to her friends about it.

"Yeah. I said vampire," the girl said. "I know it sounds ridiculous but that's what Nomers are. Well, sort of. It's a slang term for a certain sort of gothic psychopaths, the sort of people that _think_ they're vampires. Some people extend the terms to werewolves, zombies, and whatnot, all the sort of things that treat the human species as Noms."

"What's a 'Nom'?" Mitchell was entirely baffled.

The girl stepped back, looking him over critically, as she asked, "Have you spent any time on the Internet? Like ever?"

"Not really, I mean what exactly is there to do on it?"

Her eyes narrowed and she leaned a bit closer to him. "How old are you?"

"How old do I look?" Mitchell asked, keeping his cool as she got even closer. He could hear her pulse pounding through her, smell it just beneath her skin, even feel it in the warmth radiating out of her.

"Too young to have gotten so little exposure to Internet culture," the girl told him simply. "So, you gonna answer my question or are you just going to keep changing the subject to avoid giving me a straight answer?"

"What question was that again?" Mitchell teased with a charming smile.

Laughing, the girl reiterated, "Annabel, did she ever say anything to you about any creepy friends?"

"Sorry, she never said," Mitchell replied.

The girl sighed. "I'm not letting this go because I believe you, you know. I've just got some other stuff to take care of before the sun comes up," she explained, leaning back from Mitchell ruefully. She flipped her hair over her shoulder and started to walk away, calling out behind her, "I'll see you around, then, because I'm not done with you yet."

He called after her, "You know, I didn't get your name."

"I know."

"Jesus," Mitchell breathed, staring after her.

She wasn't a supernatural, that much he could tell easily. She was a flesh and blood human, and in that way, not a threat. But Mitchell's heart was pounding in his chest, pumping his black blood through his veins with the adrenaline of attraction.

Whoever she was, she was dangerous.

Mitchell shook his head to clear his thoughts and got back to work.

He didn't think about the girl again until after he'd managed to slip down to the morgue to inspect the body of the hospital's third dead employee. The police had been all over it when he'd arrived. They'd wanted to take it back to their forensics labs for an autopsy, but they had to wait until they could transport the body.

There was only a short window of time between when the police had gone and when they would return to take Annabel's body away.

Mitchell was down there the moment he could be. Herrick hadn't told him anything, but there were rumors around the hospital that there were two puncture wounds on Annabel's carotid artery. Psychopathic vampire wannabes were all anyone was talking about.

In the cold of the morgue, Mitchell lifted the sheet from Annabel's face. She was so pale, a state emphasized by the low lights. It was tragic.

She did indeed have two wounds on the side of her neck, but they were clearly punctures from needles, not fangs. Mitchell gave a sigh of relief. This wasn't his fault. Probably. A vampire could have drained her blood with a needle and syringe, but that was a time consuming process that no vamp he'd ever heard of could be bothered with. Particularly if they were thirsty.

"What's the verdict?" George asked tentatively, announcing his presence at the door. "Was she um . . . you know . . . _bit_?"

"No. This wasn't the vampires," Mitchell promised.

George almost collapsed with relief. "Well, I guess Clara was right when she said it must be Nomers."

"Who's Clara?" Mitchell asked, confused. "And when did you start throwing around words like 'nomers'?"

"_Who's Clara_? You know, the girl you spent twenty minutes talking to about an hour ago," George said, looking at Mitchell and wondering if his friend had finally fallen off the edge of sanity. "You'd think that with how much more time she spent with you than with anybody else that you could have at least remembered her name."

"She never gave it to me."

"Did she really have to? I mean, _Clarissa Moore_? The papers won't shut up about her, 'World Famous London Writer Comes to Bristol for New Book' sound familiar to you?" Looking at Mitchell's expression stay exactly the same as he went on, George continued to monologue, "You really just don't pay any attention to the wider world, do you? I know we've all got our hands full with our own ridiculous lives and everything, but still you should really try to-"

"George," Mitchell interrupted, deciding to cut him off before he really started spiraling away into despair. "We should get back to work."

It took George a minute to refocus after Mitchell derailed his rant. "Oh, right, of course."

Mitchell laughed under his breath at his best friend's ridiculous attempt to calm down and act 'normal'. George was one of the last people on earth who should be called upon to act normal. Mitchell was sure that even before he'd been turned into a werewolf, George had been more than a bit odd.

Replacing the sheet over Annabel and clapping George on the shoulder, Mitchell slipped out into the hall. He jogged upstairs to get back to what he was supposed to be doing. His thoughts were divided between thinking about Clara, and wondering who had killed Annabel. Clara had been right about one thing, and it worried Mitchell nearly as much as thinking that it _was_ a vampire behind Annabel's death. He was the common denominator between the brutal killings of three innocent girls just this month.

Death followed him with every step he took.

It was demoralizing enough to know that people died because of what he was. But this case, with Annabel's death being unrelated to the vampires, made him wonder who it could have been that did it. Perhaps he was cursed even without the black blood of the vampires.

Perhaps he had been as dangerous before he'd turned as George was socially awkward.

The thought frightened him and he squashed the feeling of terror down with a charming smile at one of the nurses. She blushed and smiled back and made Mitchell feel almost human.

* * *

**A/N:** There you have it, just a bit of a different look inside Mitchell's head. Chpt 2 will be largely the same, in terms of how it acts as a reactionary epilogue to the next episode rather than an entirely independent story, and it should be going up in a few days. The story as a whole is finished but I only started it about three weeks ago, so it's being edited at the moment. Also, I'm not entirely sure on the ending. I have two options, one that wraps up neatly at the end of season 1 and one that goes on to slightly warp Canon in seasons 2 & 3 . . . I'll tell you more about that later, & possibly even ask for opinions on the matter.

Anyway **Thank you for reading & I hope you enjoyed it!**


	2. Master of the House, Slave to its Soul

**A/N:** This is still a largely reactionary fic that follows Canon almost exactly, unless otherwise is directly stated. This chapter is set immediately after the events of the second episode (Tully), and assumes Canon. This one tries to show how fine the line is that Mitchell's walking between feeling like an isolated monster and a connected human being.

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**_Master of the House, but Slave to its Soul ~_**

What Tully had done was more than just upset the balance of things. He'd shown them that there really hadn't been a balance to begin with, there never had been. Tully had exposed the subtle shifting in the supernatural world that Mitchell had been trying to ignore ever since Herrick had made him choose a side.

With everything having just settled down at last after the incidents at the hospital, all of which were still unresolved, Mitchell, George, and Annie had thought that they could be normal again; their version of normal at least.

It had only been an illusion though, that normality.

Mitchell had tried to invite the world in, to participate in the beautiful roiling mess of humanity, with all their stories and hopes and dreams. That sort of freedom was addictive, the freeing thought that the world was manageable. But it couldn't happen.

At least, not for Mitchell.

The others were still so human. They'd forget Tully's intrusion, remember the good things and keep the bad things under-wraps. George would make good use of the tips Tully had given him to transform with, and Annie would pretend she didn't remember what he'd done, might even really forget eventually. But Mitchell would go on remembering every detail, every word, every bit until there was no one alive on earth who had ever even heard of Tully. Because that's what vampires did.

The others could right their worlds eventually, make things find a new equilibrium to balance at precariously. But Mitchell couldn't. His world didn't have a balance, it was a continuous struggle. In order to keep himself and those he loved and those he didn't even know as safe as they could ever be, Mitchell had to suppress himself every single second of every day for the rest of forever.

It was a daunting realization.

Lauren's visit . . . that horrible tape . . . Mitchell knew he couldn't escape what he was. The fact that he'd kept the DVD was more than enough to prove that. He'd been trying to tell George to be himself, convince him not to be ashamed of himself and his condition. He'd been trying to help Annie see that as well. But everything Mitchell said was hypocritical.

He was a monster and he was ashamed and everything he did that was human was entirely an act. Mitchell wasn't worthy of his friends.

With that in mind, Mitchell was setting out to make amends in his way. He wanted to help Annie cross over, and help George fall in love and stay safe for the rest of his little almost-human life. After that, Mitchell didn't know what he would do.

For now he had to walk the line between both worlds; the almost-human one he shared with George and Annie, and the dark depths of the one he pretended he could leave. Lauren had shown him, told him very clearly, that he'd been wrong to think he could just put that world behind him like a bad dream. Herrick had checked him into hotel Transylvania and he could never check out.

The thoughts were circling around in his head as Annie and George sat in the living room watching something stupid on the telly. Mitchell should have been there with them, but he was sitting on the steps, staring at the wall and trying to think about how he could make it work. If he kept lying to his friends, if he gave in just a little bit to the vampire and used it to strengthen his ability to interact with George and Annie to give them the best lives possible, then what would be so awful about it?

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door.

"Mitchell, are you expecting someone?" George called, curiously.

Lauren. "No, I'll see who it is though," Mitchell returned cheerfully, his scowl firmly in place as he pulled himself to his feet. The ten step trek to the door felt like crossing an abyss to Mitchell, he almost couldn't bring himself to open the door

If it was Lauren, if she'd come back again . . . Mitchell wasn't sure what he'd do.

The thought terrified him.

He opened the door in a sharp swing that startled the person on the other side. It wasn't Lauren. It was Clara.

And Mitchell was still scowling.

She didn't seem to mind, in fact it interested her greatly.

"Not who you were expecting?" she asked stepping closer and looking around carefully at the street corners. "Then who am I supposed to be? Who would have made you smile?"

Letting his face relax into a much friendlier expression, Mitchell responded, "Maybe I'm just having an off day and you're the only one that could make me smile, Clara."

"Ah, so he's not quite as stupid as he seems," Clara laughed. Then thinking better of it, she asked, "George told you who I am, didn't he?"

Shrugging, Mitchell admitted, "He might've mentioned."

Clara laughed. Then peeking past him into the hall, she asked, "So can I come in, or does the writer who likes to talk about dead people have to stay out on the stoop?"

"Yeah, yeah, of course, I'm sorry, come in," Mitchell said quickly, stepping back and inviting her inside. He looked to the living room, worried about what his friends might think about his inviting someone in who asked so many questions. "This way."

As Clara followed Mitchell inside to the living room, George called, "Mitchell? Who is it?"

"Clarissa Moore," Mitchell replied, leading the girl in question into the room as he did.

She smiled brightly as George paled. Beside him, Annie looked to Mitchell in confusion as George said, "Mitchell, can I talk to you for a minute? In the kitchen? Now?"

"Yeah, yeah, sure thing," Mitchell said as George leapt up from the couch and scurried across the floor to the kitchen without doing more that staring at Clara. "Can I get you some tea, Clara?" Mitchell asked.

"Yeah, tea sounds great thanks," she replied sweetly.

"Make yourself at home then," Mitchell offered, turning to follow George to the kitchen.

Not used to being invisible to humans again, Annie smiled apologetically at Clara before she followed the boys. For the briefest moment, Annie thought that Clara smiled back, that Clara _saw_ her, but the writer's head didn't turn as Annie walked past.

When Annie reached the kitchen, George was in the midst of asking, "What the hell is a writer doing here, Mitchell? She's practically a reporter! She must be here about that new book . . . What if it's about us? What if she knows about us? What if she _exposes _us?"

"She doesn't know," Mitchell promised. "If she did, do you think she would have come here alone like this? Listen, we don't even know what she wants yet. And what's more suspicious, turning her away or telling her how boring we are?"

Annie agreed in an anxious tumble of words, "Mitchell's right, George. I've read Clara's books and from her bio it's clear that the only way to make her give up on something is to make it boring. Just tell her that all you guys ever do is sit around and watch the telly on your days off and how the only exciting things that happen to you are at the hospital and you have to hear about them second hand from doctors."

"That'll go over well, tell the mystery writer about all the unexplained creepy and exciting things that happen at the hospital," George responded with distraught sarcasm.

"George, come on. She's already here," Mitchell said, calmly accepting a tray of tea from Annie. "Let's just be nice to her."

"Well, I don't suppose that there's anything else we _can_ do is there?" George replied, straightening his glasses.

He followed Mitchell out to the living room, where Clara was patiently waiting for them on the couch. "Here we are, a nice cup of tea for you," Mitchell said, setting the tray down carefully on the table for Clara to pick from.

"I'm guessing the coffee's yours," Clara mentioned looking carefully at him as he pulled up a chair. "And that the chamomile's George's. So that leaves me with this one." She picked up the yellow mug and sniffed at its contents. "Is this Earl Grey? Lovely."

Mitchell laughed as she took sip, lifting his own mug from the tray. "How'd you know who each one was for? Couldn't I have just been offering you a variety to choose from?"

It was Clara's turn to laugh. She gave Mitchell a look as she replied, "You don't do tea. If I can peg anything about a person, it's the coffee/tea question. I get a bit mixed up sometimes on the cat/dog preferences, but I can always tell a chronic coffee drinker from a tea addict."

"And what about between the teas?" Mitchell pressed, curious and thinking that if he kept asking the questions then she wouldn't have any time to interrogate him in case any more dead bodies had shown up in connection to him.

Looking pointedly at George, Clara said, "With him all in a fuss, do you really think giving him caffeine at the moment is a good idea?"

"I am not in a fuss!" George protested.

"Yeah, ya are mate," Mitchell informed him.

"I am-" George squeaked. The he realized how he sounded, making both Mitchell and Clara grin into their mugs.

After a moment of watching him burn at the stake of his own embarrassment, Clara said, "Look, you're a sweet guy, a bit private and very shy. There's no shame in that. Honestly, every book I've ever written includes a character like you in it somewhere. You're important. You see things and you realize that they're dangerous. You remind the others about the fact that the world's a big scary place even when there aren't monsters banging on the door. I like people like you, George."

"Well . . . isn't that nice," George said stiffly, trying not to reveal how much his heart rate had jumped up when she'd said that there were monsters banging on the door.

Mitchell teased, "Oh, go on, do me. I want a character profile in one of your books."

"You don't even read my books."

"How do you know?"

Clara arched an eyebrow at him. "You don't read books. You don't watch movies or dramas much either. Just a bit of something stupid on the telly, like the _Real Hustle_ or something, as an escape from the day. You don't need any more stories to keep you going. You take your stories from the real world and the people around you. Why bother reading about a lonely housewife with an unruly kid when you could go across the street and talk to her, make her a little less lonely, right?"

"Pretty good job, that sounds a lot like me," Mitchell admitted.

Clara was still staring at Mitchell, the gears behind her eyes whirring away at something. "It's funny though," she said offhandedly. "The way you act, how you _move_. It's like you've seen so much of the world that it's already gone and killed you. I don't get how a guy like you can be from Bristol."

"I've lived around, a bunch of different places over the years," Mitchell replied, brushing the comment off. Clara didn't say anything, but she didn't let the look she was giving Mitchell soften by a single degree.

George grew distinctly uncomfortable.

"So, Clara, um . . . if you don't mind," he started. "Could you tell us why you're here?"

"Not that there's anything wrong with you dropping by," Mitchell added hurriedly, "but I have to say I am curious."

Clara shrugged. "I'm still working on the Nomer case, but it doesn't look like I'm going to be able to get anywhere with it. This town is full of weirdos," she said with an oddly chipper tone. "I just wanted to ask you one more time about Annabel's Nomer friends. Are you _sure_ she didn't say anything to you about them?"

"Not once," Mitchell promised truthfully.

"Me neither, never mentioned," George jumped in.

"What about Lauren?" Clara asked, eyeing Mitchell as she did.

Pulling off a convincingly confused face, because he was legitimately confused, Mitchell asked, "What about Lauren?"

"Did she ever mention Nomer friends, before she disappeared?"

Mitchell shook his head. "No, I can't say she did. Why?"

"Because I'm worried she might be next," Clara explained. "I've got some contacts in the Nomer community and they've seen her around. They won't tell me when or where, but definitely since she's gone missing. So as of now, she's still alive, but if she's mixed up with the same people who didn't like Annabel hanging around you, then . . ."

"She'll be fine," Mitchell promised, thinking about how futile it would be for a human to try anything with Lauren. Quickly, he covered himself by adding, "She was smart girl when she was around. Strong enough to keep herself safe."

Clara looked down into the dregs of her tea. "Yeah, I guess." Then she set her mug down and looked towards the kitchen curiously, but turned away after only a moment. George and Mitchell looked to see if Annie was at the window, but were met with an empty frame.

"I should be off then," Clara said, standing. "This was nice, though."

"Yeah, really nice," Mitchell said, rising to walk her to the door. "Feel free to pop over whenever."

"Thanks." Then she called, "Goodbye, George! It was nice seeing you again."

"Yeah, anytime," George replied a bit shaky.

"Bye, Mitchell."

Mitchell watched her walk half way around the corner before he closed the door. He wasn't even sure what he was thinking about. This whole being human thing that he was doing with George and Annie . . . an hour ago it had seemed so impossible.

When Mitchell got back to the living room, Annie and George were snickering at him.

"What are you two on about?" Mitchell wondered, looking suspiciously between them.

"Gosh, Mitchell, why don't you just ask her out already," Annie teased.

George, relaxed now that she'd gone and the Chamomile had taken affect, added, "Really, if even we can see right through you, it's gotta be loads more obvious to Clara."

"What are you talking about?"

"You like her, Mitchell," Annie spelled out.

"I do what?"

George pointed out, "You were oh so nice and obliging to her."

"That's because she's dangerous, remember?" Mitchell responded, kicking George over on the couch so he had room to sit down beside the werewolf.

"Come off it, Mitchell," Annie teased as they settled in to watch whatever happened to be on. "Just admit you like the girl."

"She's nice," Mitchell responded quietly. It was enough to get his friends to give him a little peace on the matter.

And it was true, Clara was nice. She was very nice.

If Mitchell had any sense at all he would just keep it at that, never let her any closer to him. Nice people didn't live very long once they had met him.

He was cursed. He was a vampire. He was still able to smell the human warmth of Clara's body where it had seeped into the couch.

Throughout the whole of her visit, Mitchell had been able to count her heartbeats.

Clara had said it herself, Mitchell had seen so much of the world, too much of it. He was already dead and there was nothing he could do about it. No matter how much it felt like he could keep playing pretend, that was all it ever could be for him.

He could continue 'being human' for now, but he resolved himself to finding out how to best help George and Annie live well before he had to leave them behind and give in to what sort of monster he really was.

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**A/N: **Thank you so much for reading! I like to think that this chapter goes into Mitchell's thoughts a bit more since between Ep 2 & Ep 3 he decides that he needs to hook everyone up, and I've always felt that part of that was tied up in the fact that his grip on humanity was so fragile. He covered it up well for his friends, especially early on, but it really always tenuous. ^_^ Again, **THANKS FOR READING!** and the next chapter will be up soon!


	3. Love, Sex, and Other Little Drugs

**A/N: **Sorry this update is so late, but real life managed to get in the way. It's an awesome real life though . . . I spent wednesday working both Sound & Stage Crew and I even helped with Hospitality at an AMAZING concert (Passion Pit and Matt & Kim, in case you're curious) which will be exhausting and I have classes and homework and a much-less-fun-but-pays-more job to deal with sooo, yeah:

Anyway this is _still_ a largely reactionary fic that follows Canon almost exactly, unless otherwise is directly stated. This chapter is set immediately after the events of the third episode (Ghost Town), and assumes Canon. This one tries to look at what it means to be a human agent, acting inside another person's world, and at the sort of motivators that move Mitchell to certain actions.

* * *

_**Love & Sex, and Other Drugs ~**  
_

Here on this earth, Love is always so much more complicated that it should have been. It should have been the opposite of Death, the biggest reason that anyone could ever have for wanting Life. But more often than not, it is complicated.

It's the sort of complicated that hurts, the sort of complicated that tangles things up and mixes love and lust and obligation with guilt and pain.

Mitchell knew that better than anyone ever should have.

What he'd done with Lauren . . . what he'd done _for_ her with stealing the blood from the hospital . . . he'd done it without a thought, without hesitation, with pleasure and almost thrill at the act. And that he'd done it because of what he'd done _to _her . . . it was a mess.

It was a disgusting, revolting and bloody, mess.

And it was all Mitchell's fault.

For a while, however short it might have been, Mitchell had thought he'd loved Lauren.

But now he'd messed that up, as well. Whatever potential that relationship had once held, it was gone forever now.

Lauren was back with Herrick's organization, feeding again. That was Mitchell's fault too, somehow. He hadn't been supportive enough, or firm enough, or human enough to help her how she needed him to and she'd given up.

Just thinking about it made his head hurt, ache with all the guilt.

He wondered vaguely about whether or not they'd have gone out with each other again after their first night together, had he not Turned her, or even had he not been a vampire at all.

Honestly, the answer was probably no.

Mitchell had only felt a real connection too her twice in their jagged and abrupt relations. The first night he'd laid eyes on her was one, but then she'd hardly been human to him. Then she'd been the object of his hunger, his bloodlust and sex-drive united to fixate on her. For vampires, their bodily thirst for blood and their sensations of sexual lust were often one in the same.

The second time was when she'd first come to him at the hospital, asking for his help with dealing with the withdrawal of going off blood. Then she'd been his fault, his mistake, his chance for redemption. He wanted to help her. Listening to her cry about the pain just beneath her skin, the boiling acidic burn that seared her veins after the first 24 hours without blood, the echoes in her head, Mitchell had felt for a moment like he really knew her, like he understood.

For one moment, he had truly wanted to help her.

That had probably only lasted for a few minutes. After their first night back together, that bloodbath in the hotel, Mitchell had been too disgusted with it all to even articulate it. He was a monster, his world was bloody and dark and revolting and he'd managed to claw his way to the edge of oblivion and stick his head up into the light of the real world, the human world.

Half of him, more than half of him really, hated Lauren for dragging him back down into the Dark. The other half latched onto her as a way of saving himself. If he could make her less dangerous, could get her off of blood and on the wagon, just maybe he could feel a little bit better about himself.

But he lost his temper with her, he wouldn't feed with her, he couldn't do it the right way for her, and she'd given up. It was his fault, again. Everyone she killed was his fault.

It was all because he'd thought he loved her.

Upstairs, Annie's chair moved roughly across the floor of her room, reminding Mitchell that her pain was also his fault. That she had found out about her death how she had . . .

"Poor Annie," George sighed looking up through the floor to where he knew she would be as he went on, "Who could have guessed that Owen would be a murderer?"

"I could."

"What?"

"I could've guessed," Mitchell told him. "And I did. I guessed that Owen had killed her, that's why I didn't want her poking into things that might remind her of it."

"You knew? Since when?" George asked, scandalized.

"Since we first talked to him," Mitchell replied. "If I can do anything, I can recognize a Killer. I knew Owen was a monster the moment we met the bastard."

Still appalled, George demanded, "Why didn't you say anything, to me at least? Don't you think I might have found it interesting that our bloody landlord was a murderer?"

"It didn't matter. He's just a human, he couldn't actually harm any of us now," Mitchell explained. Then looking up at where Annie was, he added, "Besides, she looked so happy when she talked about him . . . I didn't have it in me to ruin it for her."

George opened his mouth to reply, but nothing came out.

He doubted that he would have been able to tell her either, their poor sweet Annie.

George and Mitchell sat together in the near silence of the living room for a while longer, until Mitchell felt the pressure was getting to be all too much. He stood abruptly and snatched his coat off its hook so roughly that he nearly knocked the whole contraption over. Violently shaking out the leather article, Mitchel stepped out the door before he'd even pulled his coat on.

"Oh. Hello."

Mitchell looked up sharply, reflecting the surprise on the face of the girl he'd almost walked into as he'd rounded the corner.

"Clara."

"Mitchell, is everything alright?"

"Yeah, things are great."

Clara looked him over with sad eyes. "Mitchell, you look awful. Why don't we go down to the pub and you can tell me what's happened?"

"I don't really want to talk about it, Clara," Mitchell told her, more angrily than he'd meant to. He was just so frustrated with himself that he couldn't contain it, couldn't rein it in the way he should have.

It didn't seem to faze Clara. "If you say so," she said. "Then why don't we go down to the pub and I can tell you about what's happened to me?"

"What's happened to you?" Mitchell asked immediately, his attention suddenly focusing down on her to see if she'd been hurt. He didn't know what he would do if Clara became his fault.

"Oh, no, no, don't worry, it's nothing bad," Clara hurried to soothe. "You know that story I was working on to do with the Nomer case? Well, it' just a novella and I sent the first draft in to my editor this morning and he _loves_ it so I've got three whole weeks to send him the revised version. Now, you might not be aware of this, but the publishing industry is typically brutal in its time demands, so this really is something of a miracle."

"No kidding," Mitchell said, relaxing into his pretending to be perfectly friendly default.

"Honestly. I've been asked before to revise a four hundred page manuscript in three days," Clara explained, stepping just a bit away from him to see if he'd follow.

Mitchell walked after her, tagging along as she walked towards the nearest pub, talking about her manuscripts and the publishing industry as a whole. When they reached the door, Clara invited him in for a drink. He hesitated.

"Oh, come on, Mitchell," she pleaded. "I don't bite."

Sighing and stepping across the threshold, Mitchell thought, '_but I do'._

"So, how are things with you," Clara asked, "other than that thing that you don't want to talk about even though it sounds terribly interesting, of course."

Mitchell smiled to himself at her curiosity as he sat down with a beer. "Things are good."

"You would make a fabulous writer with that kind of acute specificity," Clara pointed out, straight faced until the very end. "Throw a girl a bone! I'm just so curious about you."

"There's nothin' to be curious about. I'm just a bloke. I live with my best friend and we work the graveyard shift at a hospital in Bristol," Mitchell told her with a shrug.

Clara nodded, latching on to his words. "That's exactly what I mean. You live with your best friend and work on the night shift of a hospital in Bristol. That's the kind of set up that writers would kill themselves to make sound plausible. And you just live it. Do you have any idea what I would give to spend a day inside your head?"

"It's not that much fun being me," Mitchell promised. "It's pretty boring actually."

Clara responded immediately, "That's what everyone says."

"Well, I'd expect that most people are pretty boring. Not everyone can have the sort of exciting adventures you'd want to put in a book after all," Mitchell countered.

"But everyone does have adventures, countless amazing adventures that seem so ordinary to them, but could be made into something wonderful in a book. One of my favorite scenes I've ever written is about a young man, a chronic obsessive-compulsive shoplifter, going grocery shopping and trying not to steal anything," Clara returned, looking into her beer fondly as she remembered it. "Something that seems simple can always be rendered differently."

Mitchell shrugged. "I guess that's why you're the writer."

"It's part of it," Clara agreed. "There's also the fact that I'm obnoxious and talk too much. I like hearing my own voice I guess. You should stop me you know, before I talk your ear off."

"I don't mind it. You're not that bad, really. I've got a friend, Annie . . . now she'll talk your ear off if you let her, can't bear a room to be quiet for two minutes," Mitchell laughed.

"How about George? Does he talk your ear off too?"

"Sometimes. Usually he likes a bit of peace, but sometimes . . . he gets into these nervous rants and he just goes on . . ." Mitchell was grinning just thinking about how George could get when he was worried about something. Then he noticed that Clara was smiling too. "What?"

She shrugged. "The way you talk about them . . . you really care for them, don't you?"

"Well, I live with them. It'd be harder not to get attached, wouldn't it?"

"I lived with a mate from college for a while, but we never got that way. I'll say 'hi' to her if I see her in the street, but I never smiled like that when thinking about her," Clara countered. "Though I wish I could say I have, it must be nice having friends like that."

"Yeah, it kind of is . . ."

Mitchell's smile was reflective as he paused to truly appreciate what having George and Annie in his life really meant to him. The cheer faded from his expression as he remembered what having them in his life meant for them.

"Sorry, did I make you think about that thing we're not going to talk about, even though it seems really interesting? I didn't mean to, honest," Clara apologized. Her curiosity about it as well as the sincerity of her apology rang in her voice as she spoke. She was somehow able to be incredibly nosy and yet equally polite and considerate at the same time.

Mitchell looked back in the general direction of the house. Sighing, he decided to give Clara a nibble of the meaty story she was looking for. "It just Annie," he told her. "She's going through a bad break-up, right now. I feel responsible somehow, like I should have told her that I didn't think Owen was a good guy or something that would have lightened the blow."

"Wouldn't have helped," Clara promised. "Love is a drug, just like sex, just like heroine. They all affect how the brain perceives things, liking and being liked, it's a positive feedback cycle that spirals away from reality."

"You don't believe in love? I don't believe that for a second," Mitchell protested. "If Annie reads your books, which she's promised she does, then there has to be a romance in it. She won't read anythin' without a love line in it."

"My books always have love stories, true, but that doesn't mean I believe in them. My books end before the relationships really start," Clara replied. "I'm not sure if I believe in love."

"Then you've never been in it," Mitchell told her.

"You have?"

"Yeah. It's nice."

"Where is she then? Or . . . is it Annie?"

"Annie? No, it's not Annie," Mitchell said with a shy smile as a flash of the kiss he'd accidentally shared with her flashed into his mind. "Her name was Josie . . . we were together for a while, a long while, but she had dreams to chase that I couldn't help her with."

"I'm sorry."

"It worked out for the best, I think," Mitchell said, "She's happy, last I heard."

They were both quiet for a long moment. "You're very kind, Mitchell. I really hope you never forget that. Do whatever you can to help people."

"Where's this coming from?"

"It's just, when I help people, I do it because I'm supposed to, or expected to," Clara explained. "When you do it, it's because you want to, and I think that people can feel that."

"I do what I can, but I'm not the best role model."

Clara just laughed him off. "The best role models are always the ones who start out as the worst. I think a kind-hearted, struggling ex-junkie makes for a pretty great role model."

"What?" Mitchell asked darkly. His mind had gone into overdrive. She knew he was a junkie, but did she know what his drug was? How the Hell did she find out? Was she here to patronize him about it or just to threaten to reveal the secret?

"Shit, I didn't mean to say that," Clara apologized immediately, flustered. "We can pretend I didn't, I swear I won't bring it up again, unless you want me to."

"What do you know about it?" Mitchell asked, his voice torn between demanding answers and maintaining a bit of friendly-sounding control.

Clara guiltily looked down into her glass. "It's just . . . I know the signs. I can recognize a junkie and an ex-junkie from a mile out. They're so careful, you especially. And the coffee thing and how you chain-smoke . . . and . . . I'm sorry . . . I should probably, go now, right?"

"No, it's okay," Mitchell said, relaxing back to his superficially friendly state. He could hear Clara's heart-rate still charging along at twice what it should have been. Her face was flushed with embarrassment and Mitchell had to set his glass down for fear of breaking it as his grip tightened at his resistance to the temptation. "You just surprised me is all."

"Nah, I really should probably go, but thank you," Clara told him, standing and handing over some cash to the bartender.

"Can I walk you home?"

"I've actually got work," Clara told him, adding, "and you've an afternoon off to salvage, I wouldn't want to ruin it all for you."

"Trust me, you haven't," Mitchell promised.

"Thanks. Oh, and even though, I said it wrong, I meant it when I said that I think you could make a great role model for someone," Clara said, sliding her arms into her coat sleeves.

Mitchell smiled. "People don't really say that to me very often."

"They should."

Mitchell looked away briefly, half shaking his head. As he turned his head back he hit Clara, who'd leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. She caught the corner of his mouth in the action, but didn't seem to notice.

Without saying anything Clara, looked down, embarrassed to have been caught. Then she said, "I'd like to do this again sometime." Then she trotted away without waiting for Mitchell to reply.

He would have agreed.

Whoever Clara really was, she certainly had a way with words. And honestly, for all she talked about her stories and her work and everything, she seemed just as secretive as Mitchell. She hadn't told him anything more real about herself than what he'd told her.

Even so, every time he talked to her, he walked away feeling very human.

* * *

**A/N: **Thank you so much for reading! I'm using Clara as something of a catalyst for Mitchell and his choices, particularly this time with how her suggestion of being a good role model plays into how Mitchell wants to help and befriend Bernie.

^_^ Again, **THANKS FOR READING!**


	4. A Light in the Dark

**A/N:** We're up to episode 4 (Another Fine Mess)! Still reactionary, still Canon, and still primarily meant to look inside Mitchell's head. This one brings Annie in a bit, in her sweet and motherly way, but focuses on Mitchell's confusion about the differences between being Human and being a good person.

* * *

**_A Light in the Dark Makes Shadows Come Alive ~_**

Watching Fleur and Bernie board their train almost made Mitchell want to throw himself in front of it. He doubted it would have killed him, but it almost seemed worth it to try.

He had Turned a 12-year-old kid.

And the mother had thanked him for it.

It was disgusting on so many different levels. He'd only befriended Bernie to make himself feel better about the fact that he was and always would be a monster. He could pretend to be a human being for a while when he was with the kid.

And now Bernie was his fault.

His screw up with the DVD had sent things spiraling out of control. When Bernie had gotten hit by that car . . . that was entirely Mitchell's fault. He'd needed to save him somehow, and Turning him was all he could think of doing.

Fleur and Bernie had thanked him, _thanked_ him.

He wondered if Bernie would still feel that way in a hundred years or when he was twelve going on two hundred, or three. How many people would Bernie kill after his mother couldn't feed him anymore? How would Bernie survive this world as a twelve year old forever?

Mitchell didn't think he could live with himself anymore.

He'd turned more than a few people over the years, but he'd sworn off. He hated it, how efficiently it ruined lives. Lauren had been a mistake, an accident. Bernie . . . had been a choice, an offer, a gift even . . . He'd 'saved' Bernie in a way. He'd put all the responsibility of the decision in Fleur's hands, letting her chose without telling her the costs.

And that's what sickened him.

It had been voluntary.

Bernie's mother had no idea what she was signing her son up for, but Mitchell had known every detail of it. And he'd still made the offer.

He was a monster.

He was the furthest thing from being human you could get. When Bernie had first gotten hit by that car, it had been because of that mob outside his house, the flailing idiocy contained in the notion that people were only human. Mitchell had wondered then about what exactly was the reason that he even _wanted_ to be human. Humanity was sick and vile and just as awful as anything in the Dark.

Mitchell had given a mother the rest of her life to be with her little boy.

Was it really that bad? Could this vampirism thing be utilized, a virus going into save lives? Like a flu shot preventing death itself.

Herrick said it was evolution. Herrick said they could offer people a choice. Herrick said that vampires had to look after their own. Herrick said that vampires had a responsibility to each other, that they were a family of sorts, that there would always be a place for him.

Mitchell took a long swig of his whiskey, draining the glass.

His mind was in complete chaos. Nothing made any sense to him anymore.

What exactly was he? A vampire playing human? A monster in disguise? A good man who'd been cursed with a disease he couldn't shake?

If he didn't even know exactly _what_ he was, how was he supposed to know how to decide _who_ he was? Where did his loyalties lie if he couldn't even figure out what sort of creature or person he was? Who were his people, where did he belong?

What did any of it even matter for?

"I'm buying him another round."

Mitchell felt Clara sit down beside him. His eyes were still on his glass. He sensed the bartender give her a look.

"I'll get him home safe," she promised. "I'll just have a coke."

A silent moment passed as the bartender refilled Mitchell's whiskey and delivered a bubbly coke to Clara. She passed him enough cash to more than cover the purchase. A wink told him to keep the change as she picked up her drink and began sipping on it as she looked Mitchell over. He didn't make a move to acknowledge her or the whiskey she had bought.

"You shouldn't be here, Clara," he said after a long minute.

Clara was halfway through her coke.

"Listen, Mitchell," Clara said softly. "You don't have to tell me anything. I promise I won't ask any of the burning questions about the mob at your house, or the mother and son that just got on a train, or how you walked away from a car crash. I won't even ask how Annie's doing with her break up or how it's going for George with that nurse he fancies. Let me just see you home safely, okay?"

"Why're you doin' this, Clara?" Mitchell asked, still without looking at her. "I told you that you should steer clear of me."

"If it's about my image, I've got friends in high places to keep everything clean. I know this neighborhood thing'll blow over soon. I know that you aren't what they say you are," Clara told him. "I talked to Bernie about it."

Looking sharply up at her, Mitchell responded, "In case you haven't noticed, the people who spend time with me typically end up regretting it sorely."

"That must hurt."

"They deserved so much better."

"No, I meant it must hurt you," she clarified.

Mitchell's eyes told her that he knew, that he accepted that. That they deserved so much better was still his response, it was his acceptance of the punishment that came from existing in his world.

"John Mitchell, I need you to listen very carefully to me," Clara said quietly. "I, more than most people, stepped into your world knowing that it would have shadows and secrets and that by stepping in I would forever change who I was, that even if I ever managed to step out I would never be able to go back to who I was. I'm a writer, Mitchell. I know we all have secrets. I know how all the bad things pile up and bleed into the good, how they taint everything. I stepped into your world of shadows and secrets and things I don't understand and probably never will because that's part of what it means for me to be human."

"What're you talking about, Clara?" Mitchell asked, his voice teetering on dangerous. If Clara knew he wasn't human . . .

"Everyone's afraid of themselves, Mitchell," Clara responded. "Everyone has monsters hiding inside of them. Some are bigger and badder than others, so I'm not going to patronize you by saying I know what it's like. I'm just saying that I don't think hating yourself helps."

"What do you know about me?" Mitchell demanded. The tone he used was still that dangerous one, the sort just short of threatening. "About what I _am_?"

"Nothing. I know that you're an ex-junkie with a soft heart, that you're a charming playboy followed by a string of broken hearts, and I know that you have this extraordinary capacity to be kind."

"You don't know anything."

"I don't need to know anything. You're nice to me."

"That doesn't mean anything," Mitchell replied, taking a swig of the whiskey Clara had bought him. "You don't know what I've done."

"And you don't know what I've done," Clara countered. "It doesn't even really matter. Everyone you meet changes in the time you don't spend with them, sometimes a lot. All that ever matters is how they treat you and others in the exact moment of the present."

Mitchell scoffed. "If I really were . . . what they say I am . . . no matter how nice I was to you, you'd never let your kids play with me."

"You're right, I probably wouldn't. Knowing a person's past changes the odds you can count on of predicting how they'll treat you in the future, the odds of whether or not they're using you or lying to you, but it doesn't really _tell_ you what someone will do," Clara explained.

"Sometimes it does," Mitchell said blackly.

He took another gulp of whiskey, letting it burn his throat for as long as he could. He went for another but realized he'd drained the glass.

Clara put her hand on his, carefully not touching the skin exposed by his fingerless gloves. "Your past might define who you are, it might set the stage for your future, but you're the only person that can decide what you're going to do now."

The quiet that followed was punctuated by the fact that there wasn't anyone else in the pub at all. Clara checked her watch: it was almost five in the morning. The sun would be rising before she got Mitchell home.

She hadn't known that pubs were open 24 hours a day now. The thought was almost disheartening. But at the same time, she'd rather have found Mitchell drunk in a bar than wondering the streets looking half as ready to set things on fire as he'd been when he'd left the train station and stormed into that funeral parlor.

Whatever his business there had been it hadn't taken long, and Clara was glad she'd followed him. This was not a night for him to be alone on.

"Come on, goth-boy, time to get you home," Clara said, tugging on his sleeve.

"I can't . . . I don't deserve . . . I shouldn't be there," Mitchell protested as Clara pulled harder, made him stand from the stool lest he fall off it.

Clara didn't hesitate to slide under his arm and half drag him out the door. She was tenacious, despite how small she was compared to him. "You might not deserve to live there with them or whatever you think, but your friends don't deserve to be left wondering where you are and what happened to you," Clara informed him.

She got him outside and into the back of her car without too much trouble. Getting him out of it was more of a hassle, but she managed. The door she knocked on was answered by a sweet young woman, tears running down her cheeks like she'd been crying all night.

"Oh my god, Mitchell," she breathed, jumping to help Clara get him inside.

Even with the two of them, getting him upstairs was an impossible goal so they settled for getting him to the couch in one piece. Once he was resting, Annie herded Clara into the kitchen for a cup of tea.

"Thank you so much, Clara," she said. "I've been so worried about him. George too."

"I didn't really do anything special," Clara replied. "Where is George, anyway?"

Annie shrugged. "I think he's with Nina. I _hope_ he's with Nina."

"Nina's that nurse he likes, right?"

Nodding, Annie replied, "Yeah, I think she'll be able to take care of him."

Clara agreed and took a sip of her tea. She and Annie looked through the window at Mitchell's more or less sleeping form.

"What happened exactly?" Clara asked quietly.

"Well you know the whole neighborhood was in a ruckus, right? Well, it's because Mitchell's . . . ex-girlfriend, I suppose, gave him this DVD and it was awful . . . I . . . I didn't know he'd kept it, but somehow it fell into the kid's hands and everyone thought Mitchell'd done it on purpose, given it to him as a sick joke . . . and then last night, the kid showed up, trying to apologize, I think, but it didn't work and the neighborhood went crazy and . . . I can't believe he died . . . what that must be doing to Mitchell," Annie said, explaining as best she could. "When did you find him?"

"Actually, I was walking up the street to come bother him just as the car . . . I don't think he even saw me," Clara admitted. "I went to the hospital, followed him out, sat next to him in a pub for a while, shared a drink."

Annie looked at Clara with the most sincere gratitude anyone could muster. "Thank you, for not letting him do anything stupid," she said.

"I'm not quite sure I managed that," Clara responded, looking back to Mitchell. What she'd seen that night, what she'd _heard,_ or half heard from down the hall . . . and the little boy that boarded the train with his mother. Something was wrong here.

Mitchell hated himself far too thoroughly for something to not be wrong here.

Clara finished her tea and thanked Annie for it as she made for the door. She paused before he headed out, looking once more to Mitchell. "Look after him, won't you?"

"Of course," Annie promised. "You should come back and see him when he wakes up."

"Maybe," Clara said, stepping out into the morning. As Annie waved and closed the door behind her, Clara whispered, "He may not be that eager to see me."

Sitting in her car, Clara put her forehead on the wheel.

"What have I gotten myself into, Mitchell?"

* * *

**A/N: **Thank you so much for reading! Things get even more introspective for Mitchell, with a bit of help from Clara, in the next chapter, which will be up soon!


	5. the Beast Beneath the Skin

**A/N: **This chapter is a little bit different than the others. It's still reactionary, still Canon, and still primarily meant to look inside Mitchell's head, but this one takes place inside the episode rather than immediately after it. This part of the story takes place mainly in the hours that Mitchell spends unconscious during episode 5 (Where The Wild Things Are) and rather than using Clara as a catalyst for the events of the next episode, this chapter uses her as the means of making Mitchell wake up with the particular bit of news he offers to George. This one is even more meta & introspective than the others and goes into representations that Mitchell's mind makes up of Lauren, Seth, & Herrick, renditions that I'm actually rather pleased with.

without further ado, ENJOY:

* * *

**_the Beast Beneath the Skin ~_**

A person's lovers linger inside of them.

Everyone whose lives they touch does really, propelling them in one direction or another, shaping who they are and what they want. No matter how fleeting the contact, how good or bad the outcome, no matter how much or how little a person remembers, every single life that has ever interacted with theirs makes an impact. Every person met randomly on the street, or in a bar, or at school or work, leaves a mark, a little piece of themselves wandering around inside.

Even the dead ones.

Especially the dead ones.

"Hello, Mitchell."

Mitchell would have known that voice anywhere. It sent chills down his spine and butterflies and anguish to his gut. Mitchell looked up from his whiskey and turned around from the counter to see her. "Lauren."

Lauren laughed spitefully. "I'm surprised you remember how I looked before you _killed _me," she told him, coming over to sit in his lap. She leaned in closer to whisper in his ear, "Oh right, you did that _twice_. I helped you and you killed me."

"I'm sorry, Lauren, I'm so sorry," Mitchell groveled. "I didn't mean to-"

"Right you didn't _mean_ to, like that actually makes anything better. You killed me _accidentally_. You really are cruel, Mitchell. I didn't understand that until now, but you really are so cruel," Lauren said, teary and tragic as Mitchell clung to her. "Did you ever even _like_ me?"

"Of course, I did, Lauren, of course," Mitchell promised. "You were kind and beautiful, and of course I liked you."

"Well I have always _hated _you."

"Lauren, I'm sorry."

"Goodbye, Mitchell," Lauren said, pushing away from him. Without so much as a glance behind her, Lauren walked out of the pub.

An eerie silence followed her, like there was no one else in the well-lit room, though Mitchell could clearly see a dozen people chattering away.

"That wasn't really her, you know," the bartender said.

Knowing he couldn't have heard right, Mitchell turned back to face the counter. "Clara?"

"That wasn't really Lauren," Clara reiterated, leaning over the bar on her elbows. "It was just your imagination, mixing with your memory a bit."

"What do you mean, that wasn't Lauren?" Mitchell asked. "Of course it was, she knew . . . everything I'd done to her."

"So does your own mind. Did you really kill her twice? How does that even work? I guess it's not important. Just know that real people can't be here, this club's a very classy joint, you know," Clara told him. "That wasn't really Lauren. And this bloke's not real either."

"Bloke?" Mitchell asked, turning around to see who Clara meant. "Seth."

"There he is! John Mitchell, in the flesh," Seth said, coming over to sit by Mitchell at the bar with a sort of gleeful excitement on his face.

"Why are you here, Seth?" Mitchell asked, distraught. "What do you want from me?"

"I wanna hear more of your stories," Seth replied immediately. He grabbed the sides of Mitchell's jacket and yanked on them to adoringly adjust how it sat on Mitchell's shoulders. He brushed at the lapel to smoothe it out over Mitchell's chest as he said, "All of the very _best_ stories are about you, now aren't they? John Mitchell, living legend . . . well, un-living." He laughed at his own joke as Mitchell looked ready to kill himself.

Mitchell tried to back away, but Seth stayed close to him. "I'm not telling you any more stories, Seth. That's not how I want to be remembered."

"But there are more, aren't there?" Seth asked, pleading for them, begging like a dog with a treat on a stick. "There's always more stories about Mitchell, aren't there? It's like a magic story-book that never has a last page, always more to tell, always more bodies to count. It's beautiful. You're like a work of art."

"Seth, don't-"

"Oh, come on Mitchell, we're all _dying_ to hear! Tell us again about that girl in the fireplace, or those twins from the war, or that girl in the hotel . . . 'tombservice', did you really say that?" Seth asked, his eyes full of awe and excitement. "You're our hero, you know that, right? Even when Herrick's cross with you, and even though he wants you dead right now, you're still our model of perfection, our Adonis. Hell, you're the closest thing we have to a vice president, an' even Herrick admits that."

"What?"

"It's why Herrick wanted you back so badly," Seth explained, poking with camaraderie at Mitchell's chest. "He knows how much we admire you. And he knows that there's darkness in you somewhere and if he waits long enough it'll come back out. We're all waiting for the Mitchell from out nightmares to come back to us, to show us the way through the night."

"I'm not going back, Seth."

"You will, Mitchell, we all know you will. We'll wait for you, for as long as it takes to get you back," Seth promised.

"Come on, Seth. It's time to go."

That voice sent the sort of chills down Mitchell's spine that prompted him to grab a knife from the counter as he swiveled to face the man who'd Turned him.

"Herrick. What are you doing here?" Mitchell demanded.

"I'm here for him," Herrick replied brightly. "We've got a Dog to put down."

"I'm not letting you touch George," Mitchell snarled, letting some of the monstrosity inside him show. If he ever accomplished anything in whatever his life had become, it would be keeping Herrick away from his friends.

Seth jumped up from where he'd been sitting, practically on top of Mitchell, and trotted over to his boss's side. Herrick just laughed at Mitchell's expression, "Try to stop me, then!"

He laughed again and turned away, leaving with Seth in tow.

Mitchell tried to lunge after them, but he couldn't move. He was frozen in place, none of his muscles would respond to his commands. Trembling, distraught and anguished, certain that he'd just signed his friend's death certificate, Mitchell managed to turn back to the counter.

He drained the whiskey from his glass.

Clara's fingers grabbed his hand, her cool fingertips brushed his cheek.

"It's okay, Mitchell, they weren't real," Clara promised. "George is safe for the moment."

"It's not okay . . . what do you mean, George is safe? Where is he?"

Clara hesitated. "He's with me. But not _here_. I told you, real people can't come here. Just the ones made up by your imagination and your memories."

"So what about you? Are you not-real too?" Mitchell asked, blackly adding, "Have I gotten you killed too yet? Or is that just still on the menu for tomorrow?"

"No, Mitchell, I'm fine," Clara promised. "But you're right, I'm not really here. I'm just sort of trespassing."

"Trespassing?"

"We're inside your head, Mitchell, you're in a coma," Clara explained. "Herrick stabbed you, missed your heart by a long shot, like he wasn't even aiming really. Anyway, Herrick stabbed you, and George called an ambulance, and now you're in a coma in the hospital, and I'm sitting at your bedside."

"And Annie? Where's Annie? Did she cross over?" Mitchell asked frantically.

"No, Mitchell, Annie's still here. She's worried about you," Clara said, trying to gauge how Mitchell would feel about Annie passing up the opportunity to cross over because of him.

Even Mitchell couldn't tell if he was horrified or relieved that she was still here. Maybe he was a bit of both. But Annie . . . poor Annie . . . and George must be terrified, there must be so much blood and bile and George was never any good with all of that . . .

"Mitchell, you're thinking very loudly right now, could you stop it? Please?" Clara asked, her voice high with a sort of distress that Mitchell had never heard in relation to the writer before. "Just _talk_ to me, okay? It helps you modulate the volume."

"We're inside my head?"

"Yeah, doesn't this place look familiar to you at all?"

Confused, Mitchell looked around. It wasn't just a pub, it was a little mishmash of memories. The booths from the café where he'd first met George, the bartop from a few nights ago with Clara . . . the dance floor from club where he'd first kissed Lauren.

"Yeah, I guess it does . . . then how're you here?"

"I told you, I'm trespassing."

Mitchell frowned. "But . . . how are you doing that?"

"Well, you know who I am, so a part of me was already inside your head, and that helps a lot," Clara said. "But do you remember how I said I'd give anything to spend a day inside your head? Well, I kind of meant it literally."

"But . . . _how_?"

"I don't actually know, astral projection maybe? Psychic dream infiltration? I honestly don't know . . . I've just been able to do it since . . . since I was little," Clara explained. "I can't see everything, only what you show me. But since I'm here without an invitation, I guess some of the unpleasant things inside your head came crawling out. If I could have made you understand earlier, I might have been able to help you make them go away. I'm sorry."

"They would have come anyway. And the others." Mitchell frowned and looked around. The people in the dinner booths, at the barstools, scattered about . . . they weren't his victims. They were the bystanders, scattered and faceless bystanders. They weren't the usual figures haunting his mind.

"Where are the others?"

"Other what?"

"The ones I . . . the ones I usually see," Mitchell said, hesitant even inside his own head to admit to Clara that he'd killed so many people.

Clara shrugged. "You normally have other people inside your head? Usually when I do something like this, it's just me in a room with the person I'm talking to. I think those three were just already on your mind, before I got here, I mean."

Letting her words sink in, Mitchell looked down. His glass was full again with whiskey. He drained it without hesitation.

"Tell me what you know."

"I know that it's snowing in Wales, that-"

"About me," Mitchell barked, looking up at her sharply.

Clara smiled sadly. "I know you're a vampire," she said simply. At Mitchell's continued stare, she added lightly, "Actually, I've known since you told Fleur. I was in the hall when you told her, just around the corner. You were too quiet to hear, but if I listened carefully, I could just make out what she was saying and it was enough to make me suspicious. When I saw Bernie show up at that train station . . ."

"George and Annie think I let him die," Mitchell told her blackly.

"I know."

"I _should've_ let him die."

"But you didn't," Clara pointed out. "Be it for better or for worse, you didn't."  
Mitchell shook his head, letting his eyes fall away from Clara. "But I was _wrong._ I should have . . . I made him into a _monster_, Clara."

"You made him into a vampire," Clara returned. "And maybe all vampires _are_ monsters, but it seems improbable to me. Though . . . honestly, I was scared of you, Mitchell, when I first found out. That's why I haven't been 'round lately. I didn't know how to talk to you, anymore."

"So why're you here now?" Mitchell asked, his voice black and angry with the guilt and horror that came with being what he was.

"You almost died, Mitchell," Clara said. "You don't get to having as many friends in high places as I do without getting a call when someone you like ends up in the hospital."

"Why did you come if you're so scared of me?"

"You've forgotten what I told you, Mitchell," Clara sighed. "Your past might define who you are, it might set the stage for your future, but you're the only person that can decide what you're going to do now. Somewhere in this messed up head of yours in kindness. I _was_ afraid of you Mitchell, but I've been thinking since then. You've been nice to me and I want to help you."

"I don't want help. I should just die already."

"Maybe you should, but if you do, then it'll be up to George to kill Herrick."

"He won't be able to do it."

"He might be, people have a way of surprising you."

"Not George. George won't kill . . . he can't."

Clara shrugged, not accepting the answer, but willing to move on for the sake of argument. "So what then? If George doesn't kill Herrick and he just . . . wins? How will you feel if that happens?"

"It doesn't matter, the whole world's going to burn eventually."

"Are you even listening to yourself, right now?" Clara demanded, finally fed up with his self-loathing. "That's imaginary whiskey, you know. You're not really drunk."

Mitchell shouted, "What does it matter?"

"You can't let Herrick win!"

"Why not?"

"Because that means everything you've done is wasted. What Lauren did for you, what George and Annie . . . and _Josie_, have done for you . . . none of it means anything if you just die here!" Clara tried to explain.

"Maybe none of it ever meant anything," Mitchell responded bitterly.

"Mitchell . . ."

"Don't you understand, Clara? I'm a _monster_."

"Oh, I understand," Clara responded coldly. "You're selfish, Mitchell. You want to keep everything in your crooked little world-view exactly how it is. You want to keep all of the blame on you, so that no one else could have done anything . . . because that's safe for you. Maybe, your imaginary Lauren was right, maybe you are cruel . . . because _you_ taking all the blame for everything means that none of your friends ever _mattered,_ ever did anything more noteworthy than look on in horror."

"_Christ_, Clara," Mitchell started.

She didn't let him get his thought in before she added, "George just saved your life you know, calling that ambulance. He fought off Herrick and saved your life, and you want to just sit here and make his heroics and worry mean nothing?" She paused and shook her head. "He's worried about you, right now. Wanna see? I can do that you know, show you the outside. Look."

Mitchell looked up to see Clara indicating a large mirror behind the bar. She swept a dishrag over the surface to reveal a bed in a quiet corner of the hospital. Mitchell was lying in the bed, his chest patched up with gauze and tape. It was still a bloody mess.

Clara was sitting at his bedside, her hands holding one of his and looking asleep to all the world. Behind her, George was sleeping in one of the visitor's chairs. The werewolf was curled up in a contortionist's attempt to fit inside the chair's arms, his expression was anxious and exhausted.

"George," Mitchell breathed, vaulting over the bar to stand beside Clara and put his hand against the glass separating him from his friend. Seeing George so distressed made Mitchell nearly forget everything else going on in his head at the moment.

"You think _your_ head is messed up right now . . . you've got all this guilt and pain from things from so long ago inside you, but you've lived long enough to know how to sort through it all, to categorize it and shove it all down inside," Clara said, "But him . . . he's got his hands full with right now. He _loves_ you, Mitchell, with the unquestioning loyalty of family. You're the only reason he can bear to be alive sometimes. He _needs_ you. And to make things worse for him. he thinks that this is his fault somehow."

"George! George, can you hear me!" Mitchell shouted, tapping the glass like George was a goldfish swimming around just out of reach.

"No, Mitchell, he can't," Clara said. "But I'm still inside your head and you are being very loud right now . . . doing this whole invade-a-mind thing gives me enough of a headache without your yelling."

Collapsing back against the bartop, his eyes still on George, Mitchell apologized, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry . . . I just need to talk to him . . . I need to tell him I'm sorry."

"I know," Clara whispered, her words loaded with meaning that called on so many things at once. Putting her hand on his, she added, "I can show you other things too, like Annie."

Mitchell blinked and the scene had changed. This time they were at the house, well, Annie was. And she was scared. Mitchell's blood still coated the floor and walls of the foyer, though it looked like Annie had started to clean it up. What she was scared of now had little to do with Mitchell's condition. There were papers and things blowing about in a strange breeze and the electronics were acting very peculiar.

"Annie defied Death, and now . . . she's being told that Death doesn't like to be defied," Clara explained.

"Annie . . ." Mitchell whispered, terrified.

"Please don't yell," Clara jumped to saying, knowing what was coming next.

Mitchell lowered his hand, having not even realized that he'd lifted it to pound on the glass. "Sorry."

"It's fine."

"What's going to happen to her?"

"She'll be fine this time, a bit shaken up, but fine. She'll need your help to deal with it though," Clara explained. "The problem's only going to escalate if you don't go back. She'll be running scared instead of looking for a way to fight back."

"How do you know all this?"

"It's sort of complicated . . . I um . . . I sort of died, when I was seven . . . and again when I was nine . . . and fourteen, so I sort of know how the whole 'Death' thing works" Clara started with uncharacteristic uncertainty. "Like I said, it's complicated. But I promise that I'll try to explain it all when you get better."

"Even if I wanted to, I don't think I can," Mitchell said. He blinked and suddenly the image in the mirror was that of his hospital bed again. "Look at me . . . I'm pathetic. My body can't make any new blood . . . the dialysis isn't helping either, because you can't just _clean_ the sludge of vampirism out . . . and that, that infusion they're giving me . . . all that's doing to making the hunger worse."

Clara let his comment settle for a moment before she mentioned, "You know, Josie's here too, the one you fell in love with. She wants to talk to you, Mitchell."

"I can't talk to her . . . she's already too disappointed in me, I couldn't bear hearing any more of it," Mitchell pleaded, shaking his head and trying to back away.

Clara sighed. "You need to grow up, Mitchell. You need to admit that she can help you, that she's always been able to help you. I've seen how you talk about her, Mitchell. And I've talked to her about you a little. She's good for you, she's _humanizing_ for you."

"I can't . . . I know what she's going to ask of me, and I . . . I don't think I'll be able to say no," Mitchell said, nearly hysterical.

"Then maybe you shouldn't."

"Every time I do it, the gap between me and humanity grows just a bit bigger," Mitchell pleaded. He sank down behind the bar, collapsing in a slow motion fall symbolic of the futility of the struggles he'd made to live in the human world as the sort of monster he was. "Isn't that gap wide enough already? Can't I go without killing even _one_ of the people I love?"

Clara put her hand on his cheek, kneeling down beside him. "Mitchell, listen to me . . . she just wants to talk to you. She has something important to tell you. And you have something important to tell George, look."

Reluctantly looking up as Clara indicated, Mitchell saw George in his hospital room. The hospital's priest was there, leaning over Mitchell's still form with concern. "What's going on?"

"Keep watching, this isn't an exact science you know, I can't just pan the camera around," Clara said, staring at the mirror with as much concentration as she could spare from Mitchell. "This trick's really only supposed to show you the people you're already thinking about. But I know I can . . . ah, there we go . . . "

The image shimmered inside the glass to a view just outside the hospital's ambulance entrance. Two very familiar men in black suits were skulking about the door. "Oh, god, it's them."

"You have to tell George, Mitchell," Clara said. "You have to tell George that they're coming, you have to warn him. You have to _WAKE. __**UP**__."_

Suddenly, all of the lights flickered and Mitchell began to squirm.

George thought for a moment that it might have been the sarcastic Vicar forgiving himself, invoking that prayer-like thing, whatever it was, that hurt vampires.

"Mitchell? Mitchell, it's okay," George tried to soothe, leaning over the sleeping form of Clara at Mitchell's bedside.

"George? George, they're coming. They're in the hospital," Mitchell tried to explain. He didn't think his words made all that much sense, but it seemed like George understood. After a moment of flailing uselessly about, George and the Vicar left his bedside.

"Clara?"

"I'm here, Mitchell," she said, standing to lean over him as she held Mitchell's hand firmly. She brushed the hair back from his face as his eyes looked wildly about.

"You should run, too," he told her.

Clara laughed. "They haven't run. They're going to protect you."

"No, they can't, the vampires are too strong . . ."

"Shhh, Mitchell," Clara said, leaning down to kiss his forehead. "Sleep now. They'll keep you safe. I'm going to go warn Josie, we'll hide until the morning. Don't worry. Just sleep."

With that, Clara left Mitchell's bedside. His vision was too fuzzy to see where she'd gone and his other senses were too confused with the residue of blood and bile and human and werewolf and vampire and disinfectant.

He fell into a disquiet unconsciousness before George returned to his bedside. The blackness of the abyss hung before him, breaking up in fleeting glimpses of light and awareness. He could hear when someone was talking to him, respond, but he couldn't really interact fully with anyone until Josie appeared before him in the early hours before dawn.

"Hello, Mitchell."

* * *

**A/N: **Thank you so much for reading! The next chapter is the one in which I start to tweak Canon ever so slightly, and it should be up soon!


	6. Blood of a Black Sunrise

**A/N: **And now we're at the season 1 finale! This chapter takes place in the last 5-10 minutes of the episode (Bad Moon Rising), and it changes Canon in one tiny but incredibly significant way. In this version of events Nina isn't scratched by George and doesn't turn into a werewolf. She's still traumatized, and this extension of the episode is an explanation of how she might deal with that. Happy Reading!

* * *

**_Blood of a Black Sunrise_**

Everyone has secrets.

Everyone gets scared.

Everyone runs away from some things.

It's a part of being human, it's the part of being human that _defines_ being human.

Being human means being mortal, and being mortal means being afraid. But it also means being brave. Sometimes that bravery can spin into stupidity and martyrdom, the blaze of glory that might make up for all the other moments when fear won out and being human meant running away.

It's stupid. It's pointless. It isn't real bravery.

But it is so very **_very_** human . . .

To run headlong at Death, to _choose_ it, to make it mean something is perhaps the most human thing a person could ever try to do.

And yet . . . martyrs and suicides and daredevils and adventurers aren't mourned in quite the same way as the people who just live and die. Mourning someone who died after truly living is cleansing, purifying, healing. Mourning a martyr or a suicide or someone who jumped off a mountain to see if they could fly always leaves a hole.

It's the part they never tell you about.

That when you _choose_ death, you can't actually make it mean something more. You make it mean _less_, you make it _hurt_ more. Stepping willingly into the black . . . it scares other people, makes them shy away instead of come together.

But Life and Death and Humanity is about something else as well . . . it's about Love and Sacrifice. It's about knowing a debt and paying it, about knowing you don't have to and paying it anyway because it's the right thing to do.

Sometimes that makes martyrs of us.

And sometimes it's okay.

When Mitchell let George kill Herrick, three debts were paid. George, owing Mitchell for saving him, paid for it by saving Mitchell from himself. Mitchell, owing George for using the Lyco's debt to him as leverage to create a friendship, paid by letting George even the score. And Herrick, owing Mitchell for making him what he'd become, paid by being torn apart by something so inhuman that nothing but Love could have convinced Mitchell that this was the right course of action. And Love is always human.

Annie didn't quite understand it, the whole weights and measures of accounting for it.

But she distracted herself from the confusion by trying to comfort Nina. The poor woman was in shock. She was unharmed. George hadn't hurt her when he'd shoved her back behind him. He'd scratched Annie's arm, but she was already dead so the claws just tore her jumper a bit.

Nina wasn't physically hurt, aside from a bruise or two, but she would never be okay or fine or whole again. She'd been sitting with George in his room all morning, after Annie had given her tea and hugs and tissues and more hugs and more tea.

It was awful, being confronted with Death and all its offshoots and malformations. Annie wondered if Nina would ever recover enough to function, or if it would simply drive her mad. Sitting with Mitchell around the kitchen table, Annie wondered if either Nina or George would ever recover. They didn't seem to be responding properly to the whole thing.

George had just come downstairs when there was a knock at the door. He veered away from the kitchen to answer it cautiously. Since everyone they liked was already here and there was a horde of leaderless vampires running about, opening the door seemed like a bad idea.

Peeking through the crack before he let the green wood fully swing inside, George was surprised to find Clara standing on the stoop. "Clara . . . um, I . . . don't really think this is the best time."

"I know what's happened, George," Clara told him quietly. "I can help her."

"Wh-wh-what are you talking about? Nothing's happened? Nothing-" George squeaked.

Mitchell, hearing the commotion from the kitchen, came to stand beside George. Annie was right behind him. "Clara."

"Hello, Mitchell. Annie," Clara said sweetly, though her voice was rather somber. "Can I come in? I really think I need to talk to you all."

"Yeah, of course," Mitchell said, swinging the door open, despite George's protests. Even Annie made a bit of a worried fuss as Mitchell shepherded Clara inside.

"Mitchell, what's going on?" Annie hissed in his ear as he sat Clara down at the table and turned to get her a mug of tea.

He grabbed one that looked relatively like Earl Grey and felt almost warm as he responded, "She knows about us."

"What?" George demanded, flabbergasted.

"I'm sort of . . . psychic, I guess," Clara explained in an attempt to shortcut the actual story while accepting the tea from Mitchell. "I've technically died about six times and because of it, I'm like a go-between for Life and Death."

"But you're human . . . how does that work, dying repeatedly?" Annie wondered.

"Near death-experiences; my heart stopped, my brain became unresponsive, I was declared dead," Clara explained. "And then I woke up."

"Did you ever get. . . did you ever see . . ."  
"My door? No, I never got a door. At least not mine," Clara responded. "I saw someone else's once. I even went through it with them. But it was their door not mine, so on the other side was just an empty hallway with another door. So I opened it and . . . woke up."

"Um . . . as fascinating as this all is," George stepped in awkwardly. "It doesn't actually explain why you're here."

"I'm here to help Nina. I can help her close the doors inside her head," Clara said succinctly. "I can't make her forget, but I make ease the pain of remembering. I can put the memories inside a glass box so they're more like a zoo exhibit than a wild animal inside her, and I can show Nina how to keep them there."

Mitchell asked, "Will she have to see them first, like I did when you were in my head?"

"She was in your head, Mitchell?" George asked.

"Probably, but I can be with her," Clara responded, ignoring George for the moment.

Ge0rge broke in adamantly, "Just hang on here! I am not about to let some girl I barely know go walking around inside Nina's head!"

"But what if it could really help her. George?" Annie asked. "I mean, I know we don't really know Clara, but she's helped Mitchell, hasn't she? Maybe she really can help Nina."

"I can show you how it works first, if that'll make you feel better, George," Clara offered.

"Oh yeah, because the idea of having the strange girl walking around inside _my_ head makes me feel _loads_ better," George yelped.

"Jesus, George, it's not that bad," Mitchell protested. "Don't make her out to be some sort of circus freak now, she's just tryin' to help. And really, it's not that bad. She's been in my head before and everything's fine with me."

"Mitchell, you're a vampire. I think your standards of 'fine' are a little bit different from what a human's would be," George pointed out, rather tactlessly.

After a moment of silence that wasn't nearly as awkward as it could have been, Annie said quietly, "Still, it's worth a try, George. Don't you think?"

"I . . . I don't know what I think, Annie, I really don't," George replied.

"Don't I get a say in this?"

Nina's voice, still shell-shocked and fragile, came at them accusingly from the stairs. Her teeth were mashed together as her jaw clenched. "No, I don't suppose I would, since it's only my fucking head that she'd be walking around in after all," Nina spat acridly.

Clara jumped up from her seat and stepped cautiously closer to Nina, asking, "Do you remember me from the hospital, Nina?"

"You were asking everyone questions about Mitchell."

"That's right, and do you remember what I told you about why?"

Breathing out harshly, miffed at being patronized, Nina responded, "You said that the scariest things we could ever encounter are the ones we can't make up."

"Do you understand what I meant by that now?"

Nina frowned looking first at Clara then Annie, then Mitchell . . . her eyes hesitated to fall on George and when the at last managed it, they flinched away almost instantly. Biting her lip to hold back a fresh wave of tears, Nina managed, "Yeah, I do." She took a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling to keep herself from looking at George. "All I see is that _thing_, prowling around just behind my eyes. I have to keep thinking about it . . . or it feels like it's going to take over me. It _hurts_, like there's glass stuck inside a healing cut that keeps tearing at the skin and veins. When I look at him . . . I just want to _scream_ because it just _hurts._"

"I can help with that," Clara told her. "I can't make it go away, but I can help."

"By shoving your grubby little fingers inside my head, right?"

Without even flinching at the accusation, Clara replied, "Essentially, yes."

"Fine. Do it."

"What?" George squealed, appalled at the thought of someone rummaging around inside Nina's head like it was nothing more precious than a filing cabinet.

"I can't _live_ like this, George," Nina protested. "It's there. Every time I close my eyes, it's _right_ there. I can't sleep. I can't eat. I can barely even _look_ at you or Mitchell, and I keep thinking . . . who else? Who else is a part of this horrible . . . _thing_ that you're involved with. I can't do it George, I just can't."

"S-s-s-so that's it then? We're just going to let someone dig around inside your head?" George asked her, jarred by the idea that Nina was so afraid of him that she'd want to let Clara invade her mind on the off chance it could make the memories easier to bear.

"Yeah," Nina replied, her voice still dangerous and accusing, "We are."

The room was quiet for a moment as everyone processed Nina's words. That she was so adamant about this made them reflect on the true level of horror that their world presented to the average, living person. Death had changed the trio of housemates so much that they couldn't even comprehend what Nina was feeling.

"Right," Nina said, tired of the housemates' introspection. She focused on Clara, both because Clara was the only living _human_ she had to talk to and because it was Clara that was about to be messing with the inside of Nina's head. "So, how do we do this?"

"All you have to do is lay down, and consciously let me in if I ask," Clara responded, following Nina as she marched into the living room to settle herself on the couch.

Adjusting herself anxiously, Nina asked, "I let you in and then what?"

"Well, that depends on what exactly you have going on in your head," Clara told her, sitting down on the floor beside the couch. "If you ever don't want me to see something, just picture it in a room and close the door. And if you want me to get out, you can just picture me behind a door and I'll leave."

Nina was still somewhat uncertain as Clara took her hand and told her to close her eyes. Before Clara closed her own eyes she mentioned to the others, "Touching me would be a really bad idea while I'm with Nina. It won't hurt her, but I'm going to be like a fish in an aquarium, so don't tap the glass, okay?"

"Yeah, sure," Mitchell promised immediately.

With that, Clara turned her attention fully on Nina. After about a minute of watching nothing happen at all George was about to explode with nerves. Annie managed to herd him to the kitchen and Mitchell followed for lack of anything better to do while too tense to concentrate on anything aside from Clara and Nina.

As Annie got George settled with a nice cup of tea, Mitchell looked anxiously through the kitchen window at the girls in the living room.

"What was it like, Mitchell," George asked suddenly, "when she was inside your head?"

"Couldn't really say," Mitchell replied, thinking back. "I wasn't expecting it, so I didn't even notice at first."

Annie asked, "So it doesn't hurt, then?"

"Christ, no," Mitchell returned. "I'd never've let her do it to Nina if it'd hurt."

"How long will it take?" George wondered.

Mitchell shrugged. "Time was different there, sort of like in a dream. I couldn't keep track of it to know how long she was with me."

"What happened?" Annie asked. "Did you two talk? Or . . ."

"Just talked, she was trying to get me to wake up after Herrick stabbed me," Mitchell explained. He shrugged. "She said that it's easier when she has permission, that she can help make things go away. With me, she didn't have permission, so all she could do was tell me it wasn't real . . ."

"How bad was it?" George asked, knowing a few more of the darker chapters in Mitchell's past than Annie did. He knew far better than she ever would the extent of the efforts he put into humanizing himself and burying the bodies he'd created.

Mitchell shrugged and fiddled anxiously with one of the culinary instruments he had no idea of the purpose for. "Lauren was there."

"Lauren?" George yelped.

"The girl that helped us escape from the funeral parlor?" Annie wondered.

"Yeah, that's the one," Mitchell said with black remorse.

Annie was confused. "What?"

"She's also Mitchell's ex-girlfriend, remember," George said carefully. "The awful one who sent the DVD."

As Annie reacted poorly to only hearing half the story filled in, Mitchell decided to try and find an out from continuing on with the part about how it was entirely his fault that Lauren had been a vampire to begin with. His searching for another topic let his attention wander back to the duo in the living room. "Guys," he called, directing their interest away from Lauren instantly.

Clara had disappeared from view.

When they went to investigate, they found that she'd fallen over and curled up under the coffee table. She'd let go of Nina's hand and was now clutching her head as she pressed her forehead to her knees.

Meanwhile, Nina appeared to be sleeping peacefully. Her face was the calmest that George had ever seen it and his hand instinctively went to brush the hair from her eyes. Mitchell grabbed him to prevent the action. "We shouldn't touch either of them, not until we know it's safe," Mitchell pointed out.

"She never said anything against touching Nina," George protested, pulling his hand away and coming around to hold her as best he could without disturbing her.

Annie was fretting over Clara. "Mitchell . . . shouldn't we . . . I don't know, but _do_ something?"

"We can't touch her yet," Mitchell said, balling his fists at the effort it took him not to. Annie's hands hovered over Clara's form, trying desperately to comfort her somehow though she wasn't even sure what was wrong.  
Mitchell only realized he was holding his breath when Clara's eyes snapped open and her posture loosened. He sighed heavily as she rolled back towards Nina and pushed herself into a sitting position as she said, "Nina's fine, she's just resting. She'll be out for at least a few hours."

"What the hell happened?" George demanded.

"I had Nina rewatch what had happened, and put the thing that scared her behind a bunch of filters so she was just watching a movie with no emotional attachment to the plot," Clara explained. "I funneled all of her terror into me so she didn't feel any of it."

"But what happened? What went wrong?"

"Nothing went wrong," Clara replied looking at Annie in confusion.

The ghost was just as confused. "But you were on the floor."

"Oh . . . yeah, I guess I should have warned you about that," Clara said. "It's kind of like a side-effect. I literally funneled Nina's fear into me so when I broke the connection I was kind of terrified. And there's a really bad headache that kicks in when the connection ends, so it was a little bit of both. I wasn't expecting it to be quite that bad though, sorry for scaring you."

"You, scaring us?" Annie asked her voice as bright and joking as she could make it, "Like that could happen."

George, determined to be unhappy about the whole thing asked, "What about us, have we scared you yet?" His hand was still holding Nina's.

"I'm still shaking. Watching you rip Herrick apart was the scariest thing I have ever seen," Clara confessed. "But you haven't tried to kill me yet, so we're just gonna go with that for now."

"We're not going to hurt you, Clara," Mitchell promised, holding out his hand to help her stand up. "You don't have to be scared."

As Clara took his hand and started to pull herself to her feet, Annie breathed laughingly, "Just to warn you though, if you go in for a comforting hug, Mitchell _will_ try to kiss you."

"One time, Annie," Mitchell said, grinning widely. "That was one time. It was an accident."

"I left you alone for five minutes," George complained, a little of his ill-humor subsiding.

"Geor-"

Mitchell's comment was cut off as his head turned into a kiss with Clara as she stumbled forward on legs that refused to support her.

"Told ya," Annie laughed.

Mitchell held the kiss for a surprised second as Annie and George snickered before he realized that Clara was falling, and just as surprised as he was.

Breaking the kiss, Mitchell caught Clara and helped her over to the chair, saying, "Easy there, just rest a bit." He could feel that she was indeed still shaking from what had happened inside Nina's head.

"Are you alright?" Annie asked, worry returning.

"Yeah, I'll be fine," Clara promised. "A bit of sleep and some tea in the morning, and I'll be right as rain."

Clara's words didn't seem to particularly soothe anyone. "Listen," Mitchell started, suggesting, "Why don't you two get Nina upstairs and I'll take Clara home?"

"Yeah, alright then," Annie sighed. "Don't be a stranger, Clara. Pop over any time!"

"Of course, Annie," Clara replied, getting back to her feet with Mitchell's help.

George added, "And uh . . . thanks, for . . ."

"Don't worry about it, I just hope it really helps," Clara told him.  
Mitchell helped her outside to her car. Once they were settled and he'd turned the engine on he leaned back for a moment. "You know, there's one thing that's been bothering me about this whole thing with you . . . you always show up at just the right time. Like tonight, how did you even know to come by?"

"Why John Mitchell, I think you're suspicious of me," Clara teased.

"No, it's not that exactly," Mitchell said, pulling the car into the street.

Clara shrugged. "I've been spying on you," she said simply with a slight giggle.

"Why?" Mitchell asked, his voice careful. Protecting his friends was his first and foremost mission in this sliver of human-esque life he'd found and he was still riding the outgoing tide of hatred for humanity that had risen up in the incident with Bernie. Mitchell didn't think of Clara as a threat, but that didn't mean he couldn't be wary of her.

"Personal reasons. I've found your lives very interesting, and I'm just very nosy," Clara explained. "And it was easy enough to keep an eye on you."

"How is that?"

Clara told Mitchell to take a left before saying, "You know how I said I have friends in high places? Well I've also got friends in low ones. It's just like tracking tags on tumblr or watching twitter-trends. I drop a name, maybe a description, and anytime something different or interesting happens, someone makes sure it catches my eye. So yesterday's little rush through the hospital and subsequent vanishing into the woods . . . well, that really made me look." She paused reflectively. There was a slight tremor in her voice as she mentioned, "I didn't actually know what had happened until I watched it with Nina."

"What's a twitter-trend?"

"Oh that's right," Clara responded, shaking her head, both to clear it of the troubling thoughts of the night's events and to show disapproval of Mitchell's Internet habits. "You don't spend time on the Internet." She was still in disbelief at the fact.

Clara let the confusion in the air simply hang there as twitter wasn't worth giving lengthy explanation over. She gave Mitchell a few more directions before they arrived at the flat she was renting. Mitchell parked the car but made no move to get out.

"Listen, what you know about us-"

"I'm not gonna tell anyone, Mitchell," Clara promised.  
Trying very hard to phrase it properly, Mitchell responded, "It's just . . . weird. Having a human know about us like this . . ."

"I got myself into it, though I can't say I really knew what I was doing," Clara said with a shrug. "I knew you had secrets, but when I started talking to you I thought I would just never know what they were, you know?"

"What exactly do you know about me? Do you know all of it?"

Clara shook her head. "Actually, I don't know much past what you've told me. I know you're a vampire, and that you've killed people and hate yourself for it. I don't know who or how many or anything, but I know a little. Like that Lauren girl, who I think you also Turned, right? And I know Herrick was a bad vampire, in charge of the others, and that after you let George tear him apart you went in and found his heart, staked it, and then burned the rest of whatever there was . . . which terrified Nina and even I found kind of disturbing, but there is the rule of double-tap."

She paused, looking over at Mitchell to see that he was staring straight ahead. "Other than that, I know George is a werewolf and you saved his life when you first met. And that Annie's a ghost that I'm guessing came with the house. I know you care deeply for them, and that you've always been relatively nice to me."

The car fell into silence for a moment as Clara gathered her strength to walk to her door. She took her keys from Mitchell's hand as he stayed still, trying to think of what he should do, if he should latch on to her fearlessness or warn her away.

"You're sweet, Mitchell, somewhere deep down," Clara pointed out. "And I like you."

She kissed his cheek before he could turn to her in surprise, and then clambered out of the car on almost steady feet. She made it to her door before Mitchell managed to rationalize what had happened and by the time he thought to help her inside she'd already closed the door behind her.

Mitchell grinned reflectively, thinking that Clara and Josie were very different women, but had they the chance, they would have gotten along smashingly. The thought followed him as he walked all the way back to the house with the sun warm on his back.

He came quietly in to find George and Annie sitting at the kitchen table. He grabbed himself the bowl of cereal that George wasn't eating as he sat down, suddenly ravenous. Annie asked how Clara was and he replied that she was great with a smile that made Annie sure Mitchell fancied the girl. Mitchell then asked her how Nina was doing.

"She's still sleeping, but it seems like she'll be okay," Annie responded.

The kitchen was quiet for a moment.

Then George asked, "So is that it then? Are we _finally_ safe now?"

Mitchell shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe Herrick was right and maybe someone will step up to take his place." The thought hung uneasily in the air for a moment as Mitchell swallowed his mouthful. Then he added, "Or maybe it is over. Maybe we are safe. None of us have ever really felt that before, so maybe this is it. Maybe this is what safety feels like."

"Yeah, maybe," Annie agreed, quietly hopeful.

Everyone has secrets.

Everyone gets scared.

Everyone runs away from some things.

It's such a fundamental part of being human that the moment when you can stop running, when you can just sit for a moment, feels wrong.

Sometimes it is wrong. And sometimes it isn't.

But only Time can really tell.

* * *

**A/N:** This is the last chapter that sticks to Cannon exactly save for a few rather insignificant alterations. I could stop the fic here, and just let you all suppose what would happen now that Nina isn't cursed. I do have another version this chapter, one that leads into a few continuation chapters that cover the relevant points seasons 2 & 3, but I'm not sure if I should put it up (one of my friends really likes how open this ending is, and I thought some of you might agree).

So what do you guys want, a bit more continuation, or completion as it stands? If you care to answer, just PM me or review with your response!


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